Many people wonder why it is or how it can be that many people can keep using a drug or alcohol when they know that it’s killing them. They have been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, they’ve had a few overdoses, and they are intelligent people but they keep using in spite of the very powerful life threatening things that are occurring in their life. Almost like every week, or two, or month, they could be at death’s door and still, they use their drug of choice.
This is a phenomenal occurrence, but when you think about it from the perspective of an addict's or alcoholic's mind, historically this drug has made them feel wonderful. It has been awesome. I joke in a way that nobody gets to feel as good as a heroine addict. In normal life we just don’t get to feel that good. If your happiest day ever is a “10”, a heroin addict gets to “15” while high. I couldn’t feel that great if I won the Nobel Peace Prize! Of course, the high doesn’t last, whereas if I won the Nobel Peace Prize, I might remain elated about that for the rest of my life to some extent, but it’s not as intense. And then, take into consideration that often times, people have emotionally traumatic and emotionally malnourished experiences developmentally that the drug relieves so, if you are starting off on the happiness scale at a 1 or 2, and then you go to a 15 when using your drug of choice, the distance you’ve traveled is huge.
That is a powerful positive reinforcement history. If you are someone who has an average amount of emotional trauma or emotionally malnourishment experiences and you’ve been pretty comfortable emotionally, and you do some drug like heroin, you’ll go from say a 5 or 6 to 15 which is still a very high “high”. But, to someone who is way down at the 1 or 2 range, who goes up to a 15 has a very memorable experience that is now active information in your emotional software program and that is what keeps you going back for more.
Consider in this situation that some people have not even had the experience of getting to the 5-6 average level of happiness when they experience the high of a chart-breaking 15! So, addicts are compelled and programmed by this experience to keep going back to the drug even when faced with life and death situations.
Addiction, Part III to follow.